History

As a result of a tweet by Steve McIntyre, I was made aware of an interesting dataset. This is a look by Vinther et al. at the last ~12,000 years of temperatures on the Greenland ice cap. The dataset is available here.

Figure 1 shows the full length of the data, along with the change in summer insolation at 75°N, the general location of the ice cores used to create the temperature dataset.

From the American Association for the Advancement of Science! in America:

Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’

Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he’s got an answer: “536.” Not 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults. But 536. In Europe, “It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year,” says McCormick, a historian and archaeologist who chairs the Harvard University Initiative for the Science of the Human Past.

“Change is not made without inconvenience, even when from worse to better.”

People know change occurs. They also know it always has and always will. They know that when it occurs everyone is inconvenienced as Hooker observed and some gain and some lose. They fear change because they might be in the loser group but don’t know.

In Sept. 1859, the sun unleashed a series of solar flares so powerful that telegraph offices caught fire and auroras were seen as far south as Cuba. Known as the Carrington Event, this iconic solar storm is a touchstone for discussions of extreme space weather.

Could it happen again? In a paper published May 10th, researchers from the University of Birmingham use Extreme Value Theory to estimate the average time between “Carrington-like flares.” Their best answer: ~100 years. In other words, we may be overdue for a really big storm. Read the original research here.

Rising inflation has hit the headlines, sparking some attention from journalists. What most mainstream investors don’t realize, though, is that history shows inflation can quickly get out of control, and not just in some mismanaged third-world country. Surprise spikes in inflation have occurred right here in the US—and given the massive amount of currency dilution around the world over the past decade, a jump in inflation could easily kick in again.

From Zero to Raging in Two Years

Most historical inflation studies only go back to the 1970s. But as Mike Maloney has always taught, the further back you go in history, the more you can learn about the future.

I ran across a study by Amity Shlaes, an author with an impressive bio. Her research found several examples from the past 100 years when US inflation started mildly but then soared to alarming levels. What’s perhaps even more startling is that those inflationary spikes occurred within just two short years.

Check out how much the rate of inflation rose during these periods:

Based on an earlier version of the CPI-U, Shlaes says US inflation was at 1% in 1915. Within just two years, it soared to 17%. She reports this runaway rise in prices was because the Treasury “spent like crazy on the war, creating money to pay for it…”

The official inflation rate in 1945 was 2%, but surged to 14% within a mere 24 months, a 7-fold increase.

The CPI registered 3.2% in 1972, and hit 11% by 1974. Worse, it continued to march higher over the decade, peaking at 14.7% in April 1980, in what amounted to a near 5-fold rise.

In other words, there is clear historical precedence that inflation can rise suddenly and rapidly, and that prices can quickly spiral out of control. It would thus be dangerous for us to assume that inflation will stay subdued indefinitely.

In fact, you’ll notice these inflationary spikes occurred roughly 30 years apart. And it’s been over 40 years now since the last one…

What Inflation Could Look Like in 2020

Many analysts believe inflation will continue to rise, so let’s apply those historical increases to today and project how high inflation could potentially be two years from now.

If we matched any of those prior rates, here’s what inflation could look like by the year 2020, based on the current 2.38% CPI reading.

If we matched the 1917 rate, inflation in the year 2020 would hit a whopping 40%.

The 1947 increase would take us to 16.6%, exceeding what we saw in the 1970s and ‘80s. The 1974 rate would push us to 8.3%.

Even the least of these increases would catch most people off guard; even though real inflation (when calculated with old formulas, including items like tuition, healthcare, and energy) is quite a bit higher, when’s the last time North America was in a soaring inflationary environment?

Any of these scenarios would be good for gold, of course. And if we tip into hyperinflation, gold will still protect our purchasing power. One of the surest predictors of when the gold price will rise is when inflation takes off.

Given the massive amount of currency abuse that’s occurred around the world, soaring inflation is not some farfetched theory. Sooner or later we could easily become victim to a rapid and scary decline in purchasing power.

Friends, history has a clear warning: Inflation will not stay dormant forever, and will likely pay a personal visit to your household soon. Do what Mike and I and everyone else at GoldSilver are doing and protect your purchasing power.

Over the past decade, the biggest story in the US energy sector has been hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.

This drilling technique has enabled oil and gas producers to extract oil and natural gas from shale rock, thus increasing oil and gas production inside the US.

Media pundits have claimed that this form of oil and gas extraction is a technological breakthrough, which has enabled the US to become the world’s largest oil and gas producer, and will enable the US to become energy independent by the year 2020.